Mkv gti at the track. Thoughts on ESP etc

[bennjamin]

Hey everyone.
Took the gti for my first golf track experience yesterday - Wakefield park Goulburn NSW. H+R rear swaybar as the only modification. Michelin pilot sports tyres. I was pulling in the 1.15 range.

I've been a dozen times to the track in various cars - just after thoughts on this particular car with its electronic wizardry.

I've learnt that standard suspension is jelly on the race track. Terrible.
I've also confirmed that fantastic road tyres turn to ice on a track with a 1400kg fwd sliding about. The car took hard thrashing quite well though.

My main question/ issue is about the ESP. If on it was holding back the car and every hard corner ended in falling out of boost or wobbling as the car tried to "prevent" incidence. But with it off the car simply lit up the inside wheel and pulled wide every single corner. I could persuade good turn in with higher entry speed and lifting off and feathering the throttle.

How have you lot ( be it mkv or trackers in general) deal with overcoming this ?
Will decent suspension and semi's overcome this awkward imbalance at the track ?

I've seen some decent times posted and hope to pull this car well into the 1.10/1.09 range with a definite mod
List in mind.

Cheers for any input !

[fred27]

Good suspension and R spec tyres will make a difference and worth spending money on. For suspension you could use KW's or Bilstein's and for R specs; Yokohama (A050), Toyo (R88 or Dunlops (DZ03). You will notice the difference. Good luck and have fun cutting down your lap times.

[Martin]

The question is what [g] limit has the ESP been programmed for
Public road safety level or the actual car dymanic level
If the ESP is holding you back, you should be quicker with it off
Pushing wide just means you have to modify your driving because you've exceeded what the car is able to do

I can reccomend the supaloy lower control arms - the bushes are much firmer and it has more caster (anti lift)
My VRS Octavia had axle tramp and the supaloy control arms solved that
The initial turn in is now more crisp

I have the PS3 tires also - good all round road tire but has not met my expectations given the rave reviews

Did you put more pressure in the tires? ~42 PSI

[bennjamin]

cheers for the replies and advice - I dropped psi alittle and monitored the pressures every dozen laps or so , dropping if need be.
Thinking more about it now pushes me towards a definite LSD installed - with semis and a decent coilover setup. This , and ESP switched off and Im sure ill find my lines again.